NOM lands in North Carolina, allies already pulling the pedophilia card

According to the North Carolina gay publication, QNotes, I have some interesting neighbors up north:

A referendum committee formed by several anti-gay religious groups is among the latest official campaign organizations set up for an impending ballot initiative on an anti-LGBT state constitutional amendment banning marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.

The committee, Vote for Marriage NC, was formed last week by a coalition of groups including the N.C. Baptist State Convention, Christian Action League, NC Values Coalition, a coalition of African American pastors and the National Organization for Marriage.

 . . . “We very much look forward to a dialogue with North Carolina voters about the importance of preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of NC Values Coalition, said in a release. “The marriage amendment ensures that voters and not activist judges will decide the definition of marriage in our state. Marriage as the union of one man and one woman has served North Carolina well since before we were a state, and it’s time we respected the institution of marriage enough to protect it in our state constitution.”

Fitzgerald is a former lobbyist for the Christian Action League and N.C. Family Policy Council, groups affiliated with national organizations named as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Fitzgerald’s NC Values Coalition led the fight for legislative approval of the amendment, which came in September. The group has provided the new committee’s first $1,000 in funding.

 . . . “We are going to keep it on a positive note: keeping marriage as marriage and keeping it from being redefined,” she told the paper.

Of course we all know it means when anti-marriage equality folks say that they want to "keep the discussion on a positive note."

Should they accuse gays of wanting to corrupt children,  wanting to imprison Christians, or maybe both?

Luckily, however, QNotes is already starting to raise questions about the finances of this group in light of the fact that NOM continues to hide its donors - in violation of the law - in several other states. (Full discloure - this blogger is quoted in that article).

As for "positive discussion," according to Pam Spaulding, that nonsense has already been thrown out of the window after a debate yesterday on a radio show between two African-American community leaders - Dr. Patrick L. Wooden, Sr. of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, NC who supports the amendment and Rep. Marcus Brandon (D-60, Guilford County), who opposes it

I'm willing to bet that Wooden is a part of that newly-formed coalition. According to Pam, Wooden made a number of interesting statements:

He stated statistics (providing no source) that gay men in relationships have 8 partners outside of relationship. Too bad no one asked him about Herman Cain’s fidelity. (Editor's note - Wooden is distorting the Netherlands study which looked at casual relationships between gay men in the years before gay marriage was legalized in that area. It excluded lesbians and gay men in monogamous relationships).

He compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia.

. . . My favorite howler from Wooden: ”They are going to have to teach anal sex in the public school classroom” if gays can marry.

In contrast, Brandon came off as reasonable (hell, a badly bleating horn would come off as reasonable compared to Wooden):

Marcus Brandon did an excellent job of addressing the hypocrisy of the religious objection, noting Wooden has not called for an amendment to ban adultery and divorce, two sins that are in the Bible, as well as throwing back in Wooden’s face charges that the black civil rights movement has nothing to do with LGBT rights, saying ‎“these are all false arguments; Rosa Parks was tired because she was treated differently…That is what the civil rights movement was about.”

Whatever the case may be, the question of marriage equality in NC is heating up. And it would do the gay community well to start preparing now. As idiotic as Wooden sounded, he was getting those statistics from somewhere. And we are probably going to be hearing more of them.

It's not going to be pretty. But then again, the best victories are never pretty.